Snowflake Challenge, days 13-15, and not-my-fanwork for day 12
Day 12: In your own space, create a fanwork. Make a podfic, an icon, a sketch, a meta, or a rec list. Arts and crafts. Cross stitch. Draft an essay about a particular medium. Put together a picspam or a fanmix. Write a review of book you love, a ship manifesto, a you-should-be-listening-to-this-band essay. Create something.
I'm going to have to take a raincheck on this one for myself, but I did "consult" on a fanwork creation around this time, so let me share that with you. L said on Saturday that she wanted to draw something (instead of doing her homework, LOL, but three-day-weekend, hey). She is pretty good at drawing critters (with reference), but not people, so, remembering my Fellowship of the Ring as rodents [DW link] (in response to ikel89's evil fanart prompt on the December ramble meme), I suggested to L that she draw some favorite characters as animals, too. The primary fandom she and I share lately are The Raven Cycle books. We talked through what all the characters would be, and L ended up deciding to draw them all as birds (one with them as mammals may or may not be forthcoming).
(Our original justification for Ronan was basically "nyummm!" but L expanded it a bit)
(I was suggesting a wood pigeon, but we settled on sparrow, which I do like better)
This was the one we said in unison, because, I mean, look at it XD
L also said she chose the colors for the names intentionally. Blue is, duh, blue; Gansey is green because $$$; Noah is orange because sunny/cheerful yellow would not show up and this was the closest thing; Adam is brown; and Ronan is black because he's got a theme going with his tattoos, bracelets, Chainsaw, etc.
I asked her what Henry would be/if she didn't want to draw him too, and she declined, because she says you can't introduce a main character in the last book. Heh.
**
Day 13: In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.
Recycling from last year with additions and revisions:
- Read at least 52 books. (I'm already behind, go me XD)
- Mount TBR challenge with 12 books (Pike's Peak); rules-- new goal this year, but between relying on the library way less and generally finishing stuff less, I've build up a pile of things I own and haven't read. Mostly in electronic copy, but still annoying.
- Read/watch at least 3 things from the updated "to try" list below (which should be kept updated as I keep forgetting things I want to read)
- Make progress on at least 3 "in progress" backburner book series
- Read at least 1 book in Russian
- Read at least 1 non-genre book; non-fiction counts for this
- Finish off Random Reading Bingo from 2015 -- reread of childhood favorite, book written by friend/rival/contemporary of favorite writer [something by C.S.Lewis?]. Last square (book with photographs) was filled by Miss Peregrine's Home. Challenge mode: non-fiction book written 50 years ago.
- Finish watching s3 of Killjoys and s2 of Angel
- Post at least one new thing to AO3
- Comment on AO3 throughout the year (have been doing OK at it this year, but want the reminder)
PLUS Special Worldcon related goals:
- nominate for Hugos in at least 3 categories
- read all novella and short story nominees (or at least read enough of each story that I can rank it against No Award)
- read at least 3 Hugo nominee novels in time for voting
- attend at least one panel
Mount TBR challenge
1. Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie*
2. Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie*
3. Povenance, Ann Leckie (synch read)
4. Obelisk Gate, N.K.Jemisin*
5. The Stone Sky, N.K. Jemisin*
6. Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho**
7. Penric's Mission. Lois McMaster Bujold*
8. Ruin of Angels, Max Gladstone* (in progress on Jan 1, 26%)
9. Last First Snow, Max Gladstone*
10. Crooked Kingdom, Leigh Bardugo (in progress on Jan 1, <20%)
11. My Real Children, Jo Walton* (in progress on Jan 1, <20%)
12. Among the Nameless Stars, Diana Peterfreund (oldest unread book on my Kindle)
*counts for the catching up on backburner series goal
** counts for "to try" goal
To "try" list:
Books:
- Terra Ignota
- Child of a Hidden Sea (Dellamonica)
- Fire and Hemlock (DWJ)
- The Coldfire Trilogy (C.S.Friedman)
- Daniel Abraham's novels, probably The Long Price quartet -- or The Expanse books
- Something by Ginn Hale, who has now been recommended to me several different times in different contexts
- Jim Butcher's steampunk thing
- Sorcerer to the Crown
- Neal Asher Polity novels
- The Night Circus
TV:
- Farscape
- Castlevania
- The Expanse
- Almost Human
Backburner book series:
- Sapkowski's Witcher*
- Imperial Radch*
- Broken Earth*
- Wayfarers
- Alex Verus*
- Three Body Problem*
- Oxford Time-Travel Universe*
- Iskyrne
- Guy Gavriel Kay books
- Mercy Thompson
- Kate Daniels (something else by Ilona Andrews also counts)
- Philosopher Kings* (something else by Jo Walton also counts)
- Matthew Swift-verse* (something else by any of her aliases also counts)
- Elemental Logic*
- The Magicians
- Cloud Roads*
- Craft Sequence*
- Elantra*
- Volha
- Seraphina book 2 or 3
- Toby Daye*
- Inda*
- Attolia*
- Saga*
* = I'm more than 1 volume behind
**
Day 14: In your own space, create your own challenge. Whatever your challenge is, and have fun with it!
This is always a challenging one! In 2016 I postulated a nostalgia challenge for this (I don't think much happened in 2016 itself, but funnily enough his challenge restarted with a vengeance in 2017 as cyanshadow started watching Babylon 5, and is continuing now with both her and sysann :) and 2015 led to the creation of Communally Sourced Reading Bingo (and associated epic book rec post by random category). I got to blackout on one of my three cards, and actually got pretty far on the other two (evidence). Most importantly, it absolutely got me to read some books that I never would've picked up otherwise, like du Maurier's Rebecca, North and South, and a bunch of fun non-fiction.
For this year, I was having trouble coming up with anything, but then I remembered that a while back, I semi-accidentally ended up writing an alphabetical fannish poem [DW link] detailing why I wouldn't want to trade places with any of my favorite characters for a week or longer (it was all sysann's fault). It was was actually a lot of fun going through the alphabet and selecting favorite characters, and then writing a little snippet for everyone. So, that's my challenge idea for this year's Snowflake:
Create an alphabetical character-based fanwork or series of fanworks. Make a list of 26 favorite characters, A-Z (or whatever/however many your alphabet of choice allows for). Make something for/with each of them.
Could be anything -- series of drabbles or sketches or icons, one per character, or something like a fanmix with one song for each, or a list of recs for favorite fanworks containing each character. Or maybe something more involved than that -- a crossover featuring all 26? Part of a Tarot deck (26 is just enough for the Major Arcana and some face cards)? Divide them up into couples or rugby league teams (alphabetically or with randomizer) and write/draw/talk about that? There can be some connection between the characters or a specific theme to the fanwork(s), or just an opportunity to recall and make fanworks about your favorite Q's, X's, Y's, and Z's.
(When I was doing this in my poem, I was trying to keep things to one per fandom, but obviously you don't have it.)
Day 15: In your own space, write a love letter to Fandom in general, to a particular fandom, to a trope, a relationship, a character, or to your flist/circle/followers. Share your love and squee as loud as you want to.
This challenge is one of my favorite things about Snowflake, so I'm really glad I'm catching up on this particular day / that it falls on a holiday for me so that I can answer it real-time and at a decent hour even. Last year I chose to write a love letter to my flist (and I still love you all, duh), but let me take it just a little broader this year and make this into a love letter to fandom on LJ/DW.
With LJ going quieter, I'd grdugingly spent a good chunk of 2013-2016 (sporadically) attempting to get into fandom on Tumblr, and it was such an exercise in frustration. I would find all these people who seemed into the very obscure fannish things I care about... and have no real way to talk to them with the kind of detail and permanence that I wanted, no real way to get to know them better outside of that narrow context, or even get a good feel for what else they might be into outside of this particular instant. It was also impossible to keep track of who anyone was, what with the renames. I could just barely sort of keep track of the people I knew from LJ who had migrated to Tumblr, but even that not really, and I couldn't even begin to see how someone could make actual fannish friends there, rather than sort of transactionally post and like things. I mean, I don't doubt that partly it's me, as I know people HAVE managed to form actual real fannish friendships on Tumblr (...somehow). But for me it proved about as fulfilling as communication by messages-in-a-bottle. So I pretty much gave up on Tumblr (except for what links LJ friends choose to send my way and Buzzeed aggregates L shows me), and have been much happier, honestly. But anyway, this is not a letter griping about Tumblr, so, moving on.
What I really want to say is, in the last couple of years, since I stopped trying to "get" Tumblr fandom, I've actually stumbled across small but intensely satisfying pockets of fandom-as-I-think-of-it on LJ/DW -- I mean, outside of the awesome folks who were already on my flist. I mean, new-to-me people (and some people who were gone and then returned) who talk about books and other media in the way I like best -- with a lot of detailes thoughts, comparison to other fannish things, and a lot of themselves in the discussion. I've found, miraculously, people who share my tiniest fandoms, have read improbably numbers of obscure trashy 90s fantasy books that I've also read, or have enough fandom overlaps with me to staff the entirety of a Character Roulette meme. People who are prepared to stick with me through threads and threads of multi-comment ramblings over days and weeks, people who are a source of trusted recs just by virtue of loving a book (because I know how and why they loved it, not just having to rely on hyperbolic squee in tags), and people I can matchmake into new fandoms I think they'll enjoy. People finding whose journal for the first time feels like stumbling on a hidden treasure trove, because here are years of reviews and meta and fic and awesome fannish memes I've not seen before, all there for me to follow through the months and through the tags. People jumping in with their own thoughts in the comments, leading to richer and more interesting discussion. Some of it is probably due to the fannish efforts I've heard about, to lure fandom back to LJ/DW-style platforms, and some of it, I know, is individual efforts by my flisters who do span Tumblr and LJ/DW, and some of it probably is just luck of the draw, but whatever the reason, I've been so happy to see more of this "old-style LJ" fandom around, and leaping on every opportunity to be part of it. Which is precisely why I love Snowflake so much -- because it encourages this and makes it easier to find like-minded individuals in fandom (*waves at new Snowflake friends and friends from past years of Snowflake*)
So, yeah. Love you guys. Don't ever leave me for Tumblr!
*
Let's have a fandom meme to celebrat the end of Snowflake (more or less):
Name one of my fandoms, and I will give you these answers.
Favorite character:
Least Favorite character:
5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):
Character I find most attractive:
Character I would marry:
Character I would be best friends with:
a random thought:
An unpopular opinion:
my canon OTP:
Non-canon OTP:
most badass character:
pairing I am not a fan of:
character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):
favourite friendship:
character I want to adopt or be adopted by
For reference, fandoms of note: ASOIAF, AtLA/Korra, Avengers (movie-verse only), Babylon 5, Buffy (through s6), Chronicles of Amber, Curseworkers, Demon's Noun, Discworld, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos, Dresden Files, Firefly, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Killjoys, Kingkiller Chronicles, Kushiel's Legacy, Lord of the Rings, Machineries of Empire, Rivers of London, Sherlock BBC, Temeraire, Tortall, Vorkosigan Saga, Warchild, and anything else you know I'm into.
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1068877.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
I'm going to have to take a raincheck on this one for myself, but I did "consult" on a fanwork creation around this time, so let me share that with you. L said on Saturday that she wanted to draw something (instead of doing her homework, LOL, but three-day-weekend, hey). She is pretty good at drawing critters (with reference), but not people, so, remembering my Fellowship of the Ring as rodents [DW link] (in response to ikel89's evil fanart prompt on the December ramble meme), I suggested to L that she draw some favorite characters as animals, too. The primary fandom she and I share lately are The Raven Cycle books. We talked through what all the characters would be, and L ended up deciding to draw them all as birds (one with them as mammals may or may not be forthcoming).
(Our original justification for Ronan was basically "nyummm!" but L expanded it a bit)
(I was suggesting a wood pigeon, but we settled on sparrow, which I do like better)
This was the one we said in unison, because, I mean, look at it XD
L also said she chose the colors for the names intentionally. Blue is, duh, blue; Gansey is green because $$$; Noah is orange because sunny/cheerful yellow would not show up and this was the closest thing; Adam is brown; and Ronan is black because he's got a theme going with his tattoos, bracelets, Chainsaw, etc.
I asked her what Henry would be/if she didn't want to draw him too, and she declined, because she says you can't introduce a main character in the last book. Heh.
**
Day 13: In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.
Recycling from last year with additions and revisions:
- Read at least 52 books. (I'm already behind, go me XD)
- Mount TBR challenge with 12 books (Pike's Peak); rules-- new goal this year, but between relying on the library way less and generally finishing stuff less, I've build up a pile of things I own and haven't read. Mostly in electronic copy, but still annoying.
- Read/watch at least 3 things from the updated "to try" list below (which should be kept updated as I keep forgetting things I want to read)
- Make progress on at least 3 "in progress" backburner book series
- Read at least 1 book in Russian
- Read at least 1 non-genre book; non-fiction counts for this
- Finish off Random Reading Bingo from 2015 -- reread of childhood favorite, book written by friend/rival/contemporary of favorite writer [something by C.S.Lewis?]. Last square (book with photographs) was filled by Miss Peregrine's Home. Challenge mode: non-fiction book written 50 years ago.
- Finish watching s3 of Killjoys and s2 of Angel
- Post at least one new thing to AO3
- Comment on AO3 throughout the year (have been doing OK at it this year, but want the reminder)
PLUS Special Worldcon related goals:
- nominate for Hugos in at least 3 categories
- read all novella and short story nominees (or at least read enough of each story that I can rank it against No Award)
- read at least 3 Hugo nominee novels in time for voting
- attend at least one panel
Mount TBR challenge
1. Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie*
2. Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie*
3. Povenance, Ann Leckie (synch read)
4. Obelisk Gate, N.K.Jemisin*
5. The Stone Sky, N.K. Jemisin*
6. Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho**
7. Penric's Mission. Lois McMaster Bujold*
8. Ruin of Angels, Max Gladstone* (in progress on Jan 1, 26%)
9. Last First Snow, Max Gladstone*
10. Crooked Kingdom, Leigh Bardugo (in progress on Jan 1, <20%)
11. My Real Children, Jo Walton* (in progress on Jan 1, <20%)
12. Among the Nameless Stars, Diana Peterfreund (oldest unread book on my Kindle)
*counts for the catching up on backburner series goal
** counts for "to try" goal
To "try" list:
Books:
- Terra Ignota
- Child of a Hidden Sea (Dellamonica)
- Fire and Hemlock (DWJ)
- The Coldfire Trilogy (C.S.Friedman)
- Daniel Abraham's novels, probably The Long Price quartet -- or The Expanse books
- Something by Ginn Hale, who has now been recommended to me several different times in different contexts
- Jim Butcher's steampunk thing
- Sorcerer to the Crown
- Neal Asher Polity novels
- The Night Circus
TV:
- Farscape
- Castlevania
- The Expanse
- Almost Human
Backburner book series:
- Sapkowski's Witcher*
- Imperial Radch*
- Broken Earth*
- Wayfarers
- Alex Verus*
- Three Body Problem*
- Oxford Time-Travel Universe*
- Iskyrne
- Guy Gavriel Kay books
- Mercy Thompson
- Kate Daniels (something else by Ilona Andrews also counts)
- Philosopher Kings* (something else by Jo Walton also counts)
- Matthew Swift-verse* (something else by any of her aliases also counts)
- Elemental Logic*
- The Magicians
- Cloud Roads*
- Craft Sequence*
- Elantra*
- Volha
- Seraphina book 2 or 3
- Toby Daye*
- Inda*
- Attolia*
- Saga*
* = I'm more than 1 volume behind
**
Day 14: In your own space, create your own challenge. Whatever your challenge is, and have fun with it!
This is always a challenging one! In 2016 I postulated a nostalgia challenge for this (I don't think much happened in 2016 itself, but funnily enough his challenge restarted with a vengeance in 2017 as cyanshadow started watching Babylon 5, and is continuing now with both her and sysann :) and 2015 led to the creation of Communally Sourced Reading Bingo (and associated epic book rec post by random category). I got to blackout on one of my three cards, and actually got pretty far on the other two (evidence). Most importantly, it absolutely got me to read some books that I never would've picked up otherwise, like du Maurier's Rebecca, North and South, and a bunch of fun non-fiction.
For this year, I was having trouble coming up with anything, but then I remembered that a while back, I semi-accidentally ended up writing an alphabetical fannish poem [DW link] detailing why I wouldn't want to trade places with any of my favorite characters for a week or longer (it was all sysann's fault). It was was actually a lot of fun going through the alphabet and selecting favorite characters, and then writing a little snippet for everyone. So, that's my challenge idea for this year's Snowflake:
Create an alphabetical character-based fanwork or series of fanworks. Make a list of 26 favorite characters, A-Z (or whatever/however many your alphabet of choice allows for). Make something for/with each of them.
Could be anything -- series of drabbles or sketches or icons, one per character, or something like a fanmix with one song for each, or a list of recs for favorite fanworks containing each character. Or maybe something more involved than that -- a crossover featuring all 26? Part of a Tarot deck (26 is just enough for the Major Arcana and some face cards)? Divide them up into couples or rugby league teams (alphabetically or with randomizer) and write/draw/talk about that? There can be some connection between the characters or a specific theme to the fanwork(s), or just an opportunity to recall and make fanworks about your favorite Q's, X's, Y's, and Z's.
(When I was doing this in my poem, I was trying to keep things to one per fandom, but obviously you don't have it.)
Day 15: In your own space, write a love letter to Fandom in general, to a particular fandom, to a trope, a relationship, a character, or to your flist/circle/followers. Share your love and squee as loud as you want to.
This challenge is one of my favorite things about Snowflake, so I'm really glad I'm catching up on this particular day / that it falls on a holiday for me so that I can answer it real-time and at a decent hour even. Last year I chose to write a love letter to my flist (and I still love you all, duh), but let me take it just a little broader this year and make this into a love letter to fandom on LJ/DW.
With LJ going quieter, I'd grdugingly spent a good chunk of 2013-2016 (sporadically) attempting to get into fandom on Tumblr, and it was such an exercise in frustration. I would find all these people who seemed into the very obscure fannish things I care about... and have no real way to talk to them with the kind of detail and permanence that I wanted, no real way to get to know them better outside of that narrow context, or even get a good feel for what else they might be into outside of this particular instant. It was also impossible to keep track of who anyone was, what with the renames. I could just barely sort of keep track of the people I knew from LJ who had migrated to Tumblr, but even that not really, and I couldn't even begin to see how someone could make actual fannish friends there, rather than sort of transactionally post and like things. I mean, I don't doubt that partly it's me, as I know people HAVE managed to form actual real fannish friendships on Tumblr (...somehow). But for me it proved about as fulfilling as communication by messages-in-a-bottle. So I pretty much gave up on Tumblr (except for what links LJ friends choose to send my way and Buzzeed aggregates L shows me), and have been much happier, honestly. But anyway, this is not a letter griping about Tumblr, so, moving on.
What I really want to say is, in the last couple of years, since I stopped trying to "get" Tumblr fandom, I've actually stumbled across small but intensely satisfying pockets of fandom-as-I-think-of-it on LJ/DW -- I mean, outside of the awesome folks who were already on my flist. I mean, new-to-me people (and some people who were gone and then returned) who talk about books and other media in the way I like best -- with a lot of detailes thoughts, comparison to other fannish things, and a lot of themselves in the discussion. I've found, miraculously, people who share my tiniest fandoms, have read improbably numbers of obscure trashy 90s fantasy books that I've also read, or have enough fandom overlaps with me to staff the entirety of a Character Roulette meme. People who are prepared to stick with me through threads and threads of multi-comment ramblings over days and weeks, people who are a source of trusted recs just by virtue of loving a book (because I know how and why they loved it, not just having to rely on hyperbolic squee in tags), and people I can matchmake into new fandoms I think they'll enjoy. People finding whose journal for the first time feels like stumbling on a hidden treasure trove, because here are years of reviews and meta and fic and awesome fannish memes I've not seen before, all there for me to follow through the months and through the tags. People jumping in with their own thoughts in the comments, leading to richer and more interesting discussion. Some of it is probably due to the fannish efforts I've heard about, to lure fandom back to LJ/DW-style platforms, and some of it, I know, is individual efforts by my flisters who do span Tumblr and LJ/DW, and some of it probably is just luck of the draw, but whatever the reason, I've been so happy to see more of this "old-style LJ" fandom around, and leaping on every opportunity to be part of it. Which is precisely why I love Snowflake so much -- because it encourages this and makes it easier to find like-minded individuals in fandom (*waves at new Snowflake friends and friends from past years of Snowflake*)
So, yeah. Love you guys. Don't ever leave me for Tumblr!
*
Let's have a fandom meme to celebrat the end of Snowflake (more or less):
Name one of my fandoms, and I will give you these answers.
Favorite character:
Least Favorite character:
5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):
Character I find most attractive:
Character I would marry:
Character I would be best friends with:
a random thought:
An unpopular opinion:
my canon OTP:
Non-canon OTP:
most badass character:
pairing I am not a fan of:
character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):
favourite friendship:
character I want to adopt or be adopted by
For reference, fandoms of note: ASOIAF, AtLA/Korra, Avengers (movie-verse only), Babylon 5, Buffy (through s6), Chronicles of Amber, Curseworkers, Demon's Noun, Discworld, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos, Dresden Files, Firefly, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Killjoys, Kingkiller Chronicles, Kushiel's Legacy, Lord of the Rings, Machineries of Empire, Rivers of London, Sherlock BBC, Temeraire, Tortall, Vorkosigan Saga, Warchild, and anything else you know I'm into.
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1068877.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).